The new thing is there is no such thing as race. There is only one race, the human race. I hate to burst bubbles, but there is no such thing as a human being! Or at least not in the way you think of it. You believe you were born a human being but that is not exactly true. Readers of my blog know by now that I think and write from an Afrikan perspective. I heard somebody think, that that's not possible because there are different Afrikan perspectives, different ways in which Afrikans thinks. I would say yes and no. Superficially and sometimes historical and environmental circumstances and experiences have created differences but underneath it all there is only one way Afrikan perceive the world. I'm not going to prove that now, for that you'll have to read my Distorted Truths, so for now I'm just going to write as if the ideas presented in it are self-evident truths. Afrikans use the ideas that everything in existence is part of a system of order. Order is the key. The experience of living has taught us this. It is in answering the question, "How does the person or "human being" fit into that order, that the Afrikan has developed her worldview. The person is at the center of that order, which at the same thing a reflection of it. This lead to two concepts: anthropocentrism, the idea that the human being can be used as a measure for other things in existence, and small order-big order matrix or what is called microcosmicism. This means that the world or existence is layered such that one level is a reflection of the other and so on and so on. For example, the Nature, the home, and the womb are all correspondent because each is a space or place where beings are housed, feed, protected. From the concept of anthropocentrism we are able to extract a powerful analogical tool--the reproductive metaphor, which is the use of human reproductive dynamics, sperm, egg, conception, zygotes, placenta, birth, all these elements to draw parallels to other aspects of existence. So all my arguments are based on the use of anthropocentrism, microcosmicism, and the reproductive metaphor. And each of these concepts can be found in ALL Afrikan cultures. ALL! They are not found in all cultures. It is similar to my blog on fractals. The use of fractals (particularly in designs--see 3/07/13), which is an expression of microcosmicism, is found in Afrikan cultures. It is not universal-so don't try and go there.

My point is, I'm not really making a racial argument, though it may seem like I am--I'm making a cultural argument. From an Afrikan viewpoint, a person is not born a human being but through culture becomes human. This is a very different from the Western construct. To the Afrikan culture, and not through happenstance but by it very design produces human beings. A human being is the fruit to tree; but we must remember that 1) not all trees bear fruit and 2) the right seed, soil, timing, and cultivation are still needed to product fruit. Rituals provide these supplements in Afrikan culture. Understanding all of this, there are perhaps still psychical elements that help to produce the internal balance that produces the human being, and that is the point of today's blog.

Western scientific research has revealed that most whites suffer from high rates of pineal calcification and produce very little melatonin. The pineal calcification rate among Afrikans is 5-15%, and among Asians is 15-25%, while among Europeans it is 60-80%. Several Afrikan physicians and scholars have suggested that the European’s logical, anti-emotional approach is the result of a calcified pineal and its insufficient melatonin production. This deficiency has created the inability of Western man be more intuitive, sensitive, compassionate, and insightful. Drs. Frank Barr, Frances Cress-Welsing, Richard King, and biochemist Carol Barnes believe the lack of melatonin production is perhaps the chemical basis for the cultural differences between Afrikans and Europeans. The research of these individuals suggests that Western cultural behavior is caused by psychical and chemical imbalances.

We can restate their arguments as follows: The Europeans’ lack of melatonin production makes (the vast majority of) them unable to think harmoniously by coordinating both sides of their brains—they are, in fact, engaged in psychical warfare or discord. I have argued in Distorted Truths, that this imbalance is reflected in Western man's logic vs emotion, science vs religion, male vs female, human vs Nature dichotomies he has been unable to harmoniously resolve into a system for living. created. In Afrikan thought all these dichotomies are absent or at least resolved through the Afrikan worldview.

We will employ the reproductive metaphor, to examine what is happening in the Westernized brain. We can say ideas (sperm) emanating from the left brain, impregnate the right brain (ovum/womb), where they mature and remain until they are actualized (given birth). The European’s left brain, which should draw insight from the right brain, instead, in customary Western fashion, dominates the right brain, resulting in the dichotomous thinking that separates reason from emotions, the mind from body, man from woman, and the human from Nature. In other words, the masculine side of his brain dominates his feminine side, resulting in precocious and incomplete knowledge that rather than looks within or creates harmony without, it dissects and segregates all, creating various “isms” and schisms. In other words a type or form of psychical misogyny distorts his ideas. This has resulted in the Europeans’ rejection of the intellectual validity of intuition and imagination and has produced a being lacking in wisdom. The pineal gland which plays a significant role in the acquisition of knowledge in Afrikan thought, (and we see this clearly expressed in Kemet, but it is actually found again, in all Afrikan societies) has a negligible role in the Western tradition. Western man has replaced his lack of reliance on intuitive insight with a mechanistic science. In an Afrikan sense, his behavior emanates from an inability to synthesize the self; it is a problem of the soul.

Mechanistic science cannot substitute for wisdom, especially when wisdom should guide one’s scientific pursuits. Wisdom does not contradict itself for economic interest. A science that incorporates an understanding of the spirit/souls does not exclude intuition.

She started her business with just £100, lugging her beauty bag from door to door, but some 25 years later Grace Amey-Obeng has built a multi-million dollar cosmetics empire that's helping change the perception of beauty for many. One of Ghana's top entrepreneurs, Amey-Obeng has turned her mobile therapist venture into the FC Group of Companies -- a thriving conglomerate that includes clinics, a versatile cosmetics line and a beauty school. Amey-Obeng says her mission has always been to restore and enhance the natural beauty of black women -- a passion of hers ever since she was a child visiting her mother's salon. Promoting black beauty African beauty empire built on just $100 Beauty school transforms lives "Seeing how beautiful the women looked after their hairstyles and makeup really touched me and I decided that I would like to continue with this professionally," explains Amey-Obeng, who went to college in the UK and studied beauty therapy. Upon returning to the West African country, she initially started working from door to door as a mobile therapist but quickly managed to amass a large number of clients and decided to open her first beauty clinic.'A concept of well-being' At the beginning, Amey-Obeng says, one of the main things she had to combat when she put her business plan into action was the practice of skin lightening, or skin bleaching as it's often called, which refers to the use of chemical products in an attempt to lighten skin tone. "[Women] associated being light-skinned with being affluent or something and I thought that I can do something about that by going on an anti-bleaching campaign," says Amey-Obeng. "We went to the markets with our vans and spoke about the dangers of bleaching, especially in this climate. When you remove the protective layer of the skin, you expose all of yourself to the sun's rays and eventually [can] develop skin cancer." The practice of using creams and other cosmetic products to chemically lighten skin tone is a fairly common in many African countries -- but the practice is known to have detrimental health effects, says the World Health Organization. "I discovered that women were actually formulating their own concoctions at home using perming creams and all kinds of chemicals to bleach [their skin]," Amey-Obeng reveals. Once you are able to restore joy to people, it's very, very fulfilling.Grace Amey-Obeng, FC Group of Companies "Bleaching is a very dangerous enterprise to embark on and we try as much as we can to educate the public on it," she says. "Beauty is a total concept, it's a concept of well-being -- if you eat well, exercise well and rest well, your skin will naturally glow."Nurturing talent In her battle against bleaching, the determined beautician has launched an education initiative. In addition to a weekly newspaper column, where she offers advice to people about keeping their skin healthy, she also combats the prevalence of chemical options by training students at her beauty school and when selling products over the counter. "Setting up the school was a matter of course, because I needed help, so I started with two students and trained them for free so they can give me assistance," says the business mogul. That was in 1998. Since then Amey-Obeng says over 5,000 students have graduated from FC Beauty College. "On the day of graduation, I always cry because I see the joy in their faces that they have accomplished something," she says. "They've been through challenges." It's this desire to nurture young talent and help women embrace their natural beauty that seems to drive the successful entrepreneur's efforts. While she admits that she can't help every young woman who passes through the college doors, she always reminds students of her startup experience to inspire them. "I tell them my story all the time," says Amey-Obeng. "Take products and go door to door; communicate with your clients; express your knowledge and you will win their confidence," she adds. "So we give them different options and entrepreneur skills so they can be able to stand on their own." Despite a lifetime of industry experience and successful business, Amey-Obeng says it's still the small things -- like seeing a satisfied client -- that makes her smile. "I see clients come in with horrible conditions and through therapy and guidance, they are happy. And once they're happy, I'm happy," she says. "Once you are able to restore joy to people, it's very, very fulfilling. It's good to reach out to the deprived and to me that is fulfillment."

If there is a level playing field in athletics, it is the earth -- literally. "A scientist interested in exploring physical and performance differences couldn't invent a better sport than running," wrote Amby Burfoot, a former track star who is now executive editor of Runner's World. Running is a true worldwide sport, practiced and enjoyed in almost every country around the globe. Also, it doesn't require any special equipment, coaching or facilities. [Ethiopia's] Abebe Bikila proved this dramatically in the 1960 Olympic Games when-shoeless, little coached and inexperienced-he won the marathon. Given the universality of running, it's reasonable to expect that the best runners should come from a wide range of countries and racial groups. This isn't, however, what happens. Nearly all the sprints are won by runners of West African descent. Nearly all the distance races are won, remarkably, by runners from just one small corner of one small African country. Running, the most democratic of sports, attracts participants from every corner of the globe. Yet the stars are increasingly monochromatic. For all practical reality, men's world championship events might as well post a sign declaring, "Whites Need Not Apply." With the breaking of Sebastian Coe's 18-year-old 1,000-meter world record in September 1999 by Kenyan Noah Ngeny, a Kalenjin (Nandi) every men's world record at every commonly run track distance now belongs to a runner of African descent. The ancestry of elite performers reflects a remarkably consistent pattern, as journalist Steve Sailer has demonstrated. Sailer analyzed the top 100 times for nine events from the 100 meters to the marathon-900 performances in all-broken down by seven population groups: Caucasians, East Asians, Mexicans, North Africans, East Africans, and athletes of West African descent including African Americans. In most cases the elite of each population performed best at one or two specific distances. Overall, whites and Asians are in danger of becoming mere asterisks when compared to darker-skinned competitors. Among Sailer's key findings: • Blacks who trace their ancestry to central West Africa hold 35 percent of all top 900 times, concentrated entirely in the sprints; • Athletes from one country, Kenya, make up 28.5 percent of all the top performances: Kenyans own 95 percent of the top times in the 3,000-meter steeplechase; and East Africans, Kenyans and Ethiopians in particular, hold more than half the top times at races from 800 meters to 10,000 meters; • North Africans-from Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria-do well over 1,500 meters and form a performance bell that peaks at 5,000 meters; • Mexicans, mostly Native Indians, are strongest at 10,000 meters and the marathon; • East Asians-Chinese, Koreans and Japanese-have less than 2 percent of top times, all at the marathon; • Whites do not excel at any particular distance and held only 14 percent of the top times, although their best distances are in the middle distances of 800 and 1500 meters, and the marathon. Amazingly, whereas only one in every eight people in the world are believed to be black, more than three of four top times in these events-75 percent-are held by runners of African origin. Track-and-field talent in Africa is not evenly distributed across the continent but is concentrated in three distinct regions: the two northwest African countries of Algeria and Morocco; a semi-contiguous string of West African coastal states, dominated by Senegal and Nigeria; and a large block of eastern and southern African states stretching unbroken from Ethiopia to South Africa, with Kenya and South Africa by far the largest producers.Sprints To better understand the complex story behind this dramatic map, let's deconstruct the record book. Remember the last time a non-black set the men's world record in the 100-meter sprint? One has to go back to 1960, when German Armin Hary won the Olympic gold medal in 10.2 seconds. Today, the 100 meter distance is totally monopolized by blacks with West African roots. They are quicker out of the starting blocks and demonstrate blazing speed over short distances. Former "world's fastest human" Donovan Bailey clocked a mind-bending 27 miles per hour at the mid-point of his record-breaking race at the Atlanta Olympics. There are no sprinters of note from Asia, even with more than 50 percent of the world's population, a Confucian and Tao tradition of discipline, and an authoritarian sports system in place in the most populous country, China. No white sprinter can be found on the list of 100-meter sprinters; the best time by a white, 10 seconds, ranks more than 200th on the all-time list. Dozens of blacks, every one with a West African ancestry, have cracked the 10-second barrier, but no sprinter of any other race. For top black sprinters, it's an every-meet occurrence. All of the 32 finalists in the last four Olympic men's 100-meter races are of West African descent. The likelihood of that happening based on population numbers alone-blacks from that region, now living around the globe, represent approximately 8 percent of the world's population-is 0.0000000000000000000000000000000001 percent. Although there are currently no elite 100-meter male runners who are white or Asian, there have been a small handful over the years (as would be expected with a bell curve distribution). In 1979 Italy's Pietro Mennea shattered the 200-meter record with a time of 19.72 seconds, still the best time by a non-African. Although he ran in Mexico City's 7,300 foot altitude and was aided by a tailwind of 90 percent of the allowable limit, Mennea's moment in the sun is invoked as "proof" that whites can run as fast as blacks. While Mennea's record held for 17 years, it was pulverized twice in 1996 by Michael Johnson, the second time in a stunning 19.32, an improvement of more than 2 percent-an unheard-of breakthrough in sprinting. Mennea remains the only white man among the all-time great 200-meter runners. Intriguingly, like many southern Italians and Spaniards who are standouts in running, Mennea traces part of his own ancestry to sub-Saharan West Africa. The genetic makeup of many North Africans and South Europeans reflects the gene flow that occurred between the two continents.

I don’t remember when I first started hearing young people say, “You gotta give respect to get it!” It may have been in the late eighties or early nineties. I’m a baby-boomer, born in the fifties; so naturally, I never heard such nonsense when I grew up! My family is from North Carolina, both sides. My mother and father grew up in the same town, on the same road--they were neighbors, probably even distant cousins. (I have a lot of double cousins—individuals that are related to me on both sides of my family. For example, my father’s eldest brother married my mother’s aunt, making the children from that union my first and second cousins, respectively.) The older folks that I grew up around were part of the generation that changed America. That’s not to say they all marched in civil rights demonstrations or participated in protests, but they shared in the historical consciousness of the period. They couldn’t escape it—it was in the air. Most of these people were born near or during the Depression. Living in Jim Crow American was difficult; yet some people made gains despite it. Most of those gains, however, were lost during the Depression. These people knew hardship. Part of that hardship was the wanton and capricious violence inflicted on families by white southerners who acted maliciously and always with impunity. (I know some of my family’s stories, and some of them show the courage and sacrifice my ancestors made.) These people grew up neglected, victimized, and disrespected by the larger white society. Many were burdened by inferiority complexes, Post Traumatic Slave Syndromes, and Willie Lynch mentalities; but they expected their own people to show respect to each other. And those who had lived the longest, enduring the daily tribulations of racist life in America, and who had in spite of this, been beacons for their families, and models for their communities, were respected most. These were the elders, those who were closest to the ancestral world and who had acquired the most wisdom in this one. Yes, they were the ones given the most respect.Clearly, there has been a communal breakdown among our people. Some scholars argue this breakdown is a result of the civil right movement, which spurred a black flight, that drain our communities of its professionals, intellectuals, businesspeople, and artists, who now moved to "integrated" neighborhood, where there was less crime, better budgeted-schools, better medical facilities, and overall better services. Needless to say, this breakdown is a primary reason our young are so alienated from the old. This is why they can utter such statements regarding respect. But I have one question for them, if you don’t want to respect those who came before you, who paved the way, then what about yourselves? (I don't see much self respect out there.)

This was a trick question. The two, self respect and respect for others, are linked--they are locked into a reciprocal relationship that is mutually exclusive; It is not possible to respect oneself, if one has not developed the capacity to respect others! After all, it is only by drawing from that capacity to respect others, that one realizes self respect! We must recognize that respect is not an innate quality but is a cultural concern. The way it works is the elders teach it, the young learn it. It is a social courtesy and as such, you don't really have to give it, to get it. You give it because you were taught to. You often didn't even know the person well enough to determine whether they actually warranted respect--it was politeness. This article was not written to pass any age-group or generational blame, since the real issue is our communal breakdown. Thus, the problem is a communal one, not simply a personal or individual one. We have to solve it and everybody has to do their job, play their part.

Black women are helping Indians take advantage of Indians, buying hair from a people that would just as soon Black women as Untouchables, all because white supremacy has convinced you that your hair is ugly, bad, or just undesirable. It's time for an Afrikan Beauty Revolution!

$3.3 billion per year on tobacco. $3 billion per year on whiskey, wine and beer. $2.8 billion per year on the non-alcoholic beverages. $3.1 billion per year on leisure time. $3.5 billion per year on toys, games, and pets. $19 billion per year on telephone services. $10 billion per year on buying gifts for one another. $13 billion per year on gambling. $29.3 billion per year on clothing.

Now if we could only direct that spending at Afrikan industries and allow our dollars to pass through Black hands at least 15 times before, if ever, it leaves our communities we would be free yesterday. Our problem is one of mindset. You don't have to tell Chinese or Jews other people to buy from their own kind but our enslavement and colonization has damaged our thinking--we don't think naturally--based on genetic, and cultural survival.

The Mbuti worldview and their social and spiritual aspirations can be reduced to one word--Ekimi or harmony. Ekimi is a concept that also embodies mercy, justice, mutuality, and the idea that the natural order is inherently moral. When disorder or akami (noise) occurs, quarrels among spouses, youth rebellion, adultery, incest and death beset society. An Mbuti elder told Turnbull:

"Normally everything goes well in our world. But at night when we are sleeping, sometimes things go wrong, because we are not awake to stop them from going wrong. Army ants invade the camp; leopards may come in and steal a hunting dog or even a child. If we were awake these things would not happen. So when something big goes wrong, like illness or bad hunting or death, it must be because the forest is sleeping and not looking after its children. So what do we do? We wake it up. We wake it up by singing to it, and we do this because we want it to awaken happy. Then everything will be well and good again. So when our world is going well then also we sing to the forest because we want it to share our happiness."

The BaMbuti, "children of the forest." Called "God's people" by the Kemeyu.

Disorder in the camp causes disorder in the forest. According to the Mbuti, the source of this disorder can be either inattentiveness by the Creator or his retribution for “noise.” Once akami (noise) becomes too great, the entire forest/structured world is threatened and society needs restoration. The Mbuti have a ritual that is designed to achieve that end: The Molimo festival.

Before the start of the Molimo festival, a new campsite is selected that will be emblematic of the impending renewal. Once the elders establish the date of the festival and until it begins, women can openly vent their sorrows, even to the point of self-afflictions, gashing themselves. They fill this pre-Molimo period with hunting, dancing and singing. The dances act out hunts or dramatize myths, while they fill their singing with reproductive metaphors. During the festival, men will court the forest as if it were a woman, and like the hunter’s wife, they expect the forest to open to her husband and generate life. At the heart of the festival and key to its therapeutic ability to breakdown and rejuvenate society, lies the molimo trumpeter whose every action is guided by the molimo spirit that has taken possession of him. So great is the molimo spirit’s power the Mbuti liken it to a monster. The festival itself revolves around the molimo spirit (trumpeter) and a (molimo) central fire. Turnbull, who was present at a festival, informs us that women and children are forbidden to glance at the molimo spirit (trumpeter) for fear it might cause death.Twinness governs the behavior of the molimo spirit. At night when the forces of disorder are more prevalent, the spirit remains calm, but at dawn, just as the sun rises and the force of light returns, it is wild and violent. The concluding nights of the festival reveal its complementary and integrative features. Slowly the women begin to participate in the ritual. Though supposedly women were forbidden to look at the molimo spirit (that “possesses” the trumpeter), the old woman who was in charge of the elima dances up to the circle of fire beside the men. As they sing, she secures them with a “net” as if they were animals. The men pay her to release the molimo fire. Next, she and a younger unmarried woman dance around the fire. Then the old woman dances into the fire wildly, nearly putting out the sacred molimo fire. Desperately the men work to keep it aflame. This happens several times. At one point the old woman opens her legs and straddles the fire, as if taking its heat into her reproductive parts.

Turnbull tells us soon all the women were around the fire singing the “forbidden” molimo songs with perfect familiarity, which leads us to believe that it is forbidden only during “normal” times. The final dance of the festival consists of the molimo spirit (trumpeter) repeating the dance of the old woman, as if enacting the same drama on a different level. Next, the molimo spirit attempts to put out the sacred fire. This time the youth battle the spirit (whereas before, they surrounded it, and in mock battles, destroyed the homes of troublemakers). As dawn approaches, the spirit finally reaches the fire and begins scattering it, only now the youth help the spirit. Turnbull considered the Molimo a male ritual. He associates the fire of the molimo with the vaginal fire and the stove kept by Mbuti women. The main symbol, the trumpet- spirit, he saw as a phallic symbol.Zuesse interprets the festival differently, and his interpretation approximates the Afrikan worldview. He believes the beginning of the festival represents the masculine aspect of the molimo and the end of the festival represents the feminine aspect. The Molimo festival ultimately brings all complements together and unites them into a wholistic entity or a unicity. It reaffirms the structured order of creation and consequently restores ekimi in the face of akami. Zuesse states, “In almost every area of symbolism the molimo is the unity of opposites. For example, despite the molimo’s apparent unity with fire, it confronts man as an emissary from the cold dark, wet regions of existence.” He continues, “The monster spirit represents primordial modes of being, existing prior to the universe of order; its dominance in the molimo expresses the spiritual consequences of the social breakdown, death, or despair that precipitated the festival.” Zuesse draws an analogy between the coals in the “mouth” of the trumpet to the uterine fire, which through intercourse produces children; the camp fire, which produces cooked flesh; and the inner heat of the forest that produces universal life. These themes are expressed throughout the festival, but ultimately, the ritual normalizes the universe. The entire purpose of the Molimo was to restore ekimi in the face of akami.

A good example of reciprocity in Mbuti society revolves around the concepts of ekimi (silence) and akami (noise). The Mbuti feel a man’s life, because of the taking of life involved in hunting, approaches akami. A woman’s role as a gatherer and especially as a “giver of life,” makes her closer to ekimi. They have four age groups: childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and elderhood, with adulthood being a time of akami, and the other age groups being periods of ekimi. Sex and sexual relationship is a primary reason for the akami of adulthood. The Mbuti have two rituals that help to lessen the tension created by akami; one is the ekokomea, a rite involving gender reversal, and the “gender” tug-of-war, which must end in a draw. Both events are filled with mimicry, and through laughter, tensions are lessened, restoring ekimi. (The two primary rituals for the youth are the molimo made for boys and the elima for girls. Conducted when the male youth feel the adults have created a climate filled with akami, the molimo made, is a social commentary, which helps to restore ekimi by giving youth “jural” power over adults. Conducted by women, the elima brings joy to the camp as it celebrates womanhood and motherhood.)

Ekimi and the Molimo would in time give birth to similar concepts like Maat, and the various carnival-like celebrations across the continent and the world.

Additional evidence exist that proves a link between the Mbuti and Kemet. In 1967, Jean-Pierre Hallet wrote Afrika Kitabu, a book about his experiences living among the Mbuti. In the book, Hallet relates how an Mbuti friend told him that in the distant past they, the Mbuti, developed a highly technical and advanced type of material culture and that they built boats and traveled widely around the world, but that this technical excellence bought them nothing but bad luck, so, preferring happiness to misery, they finally gave up this high material civilization. (The Zingh Empire perhaps.) Hallet tells us that this same Mbuti told his about a myth that contained the following elements: A god, a garden paradise, a sacred tree, a noble Mbuti man, who was moulded from the dust of the earth, and a wicked Mbuti woman who led him into akami (sin). The legend tells of the ban placed by God upon a single fruit, the woman's urging, the man's reluctance, the original disdeed, the discovery by God, and the awful punishment he layed upon the ancient Mbuti transgressors; the loss of immortality and paradise, the pangs of childbirth, and the curse of hard work. Sound familiar?

Though scholars have doubted the authenticity of this myth, believing the Mbuti borrowed it from Christian missionaries, it is possible that the inverse is true. If the Mbuti or Zingh Empire laid the foundation for world high cultures, and that remnants of its worldview and cosmology spread across Afrika, then it is possible that the Nubian/Kemetic story of Heru may be derived from an earlier Mbuti myth.

I idea that the first Afrikans who arrived in the British American colonies were indentured servants similar to European indentured servants has always troubled me. I understand that chattel slavery had not yet developed. And I am also aware that these Afrikans were legally classed as "servant." But this does not mean they occupied the same station or status as European indentured servants. I believe the two were in entirely different situations. For one, in terms of their relationship to the their mother countries, a European indentured servant could write home to love ones, perhaps receive relief, or even return home, though this was unlikely, especially since they willfully came to the colonies in search of opportunities and eventual fortunes. Indentures were legally binding agreements that obligated both sides to a number of agreed upon terms. The Afrikans who were part of "indentured servitude" were in an entirely different situation. They were victims not volunteers. They signed no pre-arranged contracts but were people forced into the system, and did not have ties to family or "mother country." As far as we know, Afrikan societies had no systems of indenture, and moreover, they did not have indenture contracts with European nations or European slavers. So Afrikan indentured servants were people ripped from their homeland, stolen persons who were experiencing culture shock. As soon as Europeans realized the Afrikan cultural disconnect, that these servants had no real legal recourse in European systems of indentured servitude, colonists passed laws to take advantaged of this situation. The distinction between indentured servant and slave is that one was a willing participant, the other was not. As a matter of fact, if a European indentured servant was kidnapped, he or she fell into the class of "white slave." It is for these reasons I reject the notion that Afrikans were servants in the same category as European indentured servants. Historians believe that the first twenty Afrikans that arrived in the Jamestown Virginia colony in 1619 were servants, like white indentured servants brought from Europe. But given European xenophobia, their negative association with the color black, it is likely that, even if the familial English word servant was used, these servants society viewed and treated differently from white servants, and in fact were more than servants but not yet chattel. Though European colonists had a system of indentured servitude called the "headright system," it is unclear how these Afrikan servants fit into that system? The system rewarded a planter with 50 acres of land for each indenture he contracted. In provided the planter with increased landholdings and the services of the workers for indenture's duration. While the planter obviously benefited, the system seemed benefited the servant as well. According to one historian: "Each indentured servant would have their fare across the Atlantic paid in full by their master. A contract was written that stipulated the length of service — typically five years. The servant would be supplied room and board while working in the master's fields. Upon completion of the contract, the servant would receive "freedom dues," a pre-arranged termination bonus. This might include land, money, a gun, clothes or food." But Afrikan "servants" had signed no such contracts, so whatever contracts merchants and planters created after the fact, it would lack the legal teeth of pre-arranged ones. The historical record shows that many of those first Afrikans that arrived in Jamestown served time as indentured servants until their obligations were complete and they were then freed. (The second generation would not be as fortunate.) According to the Virginia census, we know "Antonio the negro" arrived in the colony in 1621, and in 1625 documents show he was a servant not a slave. Later, Antonio changed his name to Anthony Johnson, married an Afrikan American servant named Mary, and they had four children. Mary and Anthony became free, and he soon owned land, cattle, and had indentured servants of his own. In 1640, the year Johnson bought his first property, three servants fled a Virginia plantation. All the indentured servants the authorities captured and returned to their owner, with two having their servitude extended four years; however, the third, an Afrikan named John Punch, they sentenced to "serve his said master or his assigns for the time of his natural life." Virginia made him a slave. Despite the complete lack of a slave tradition in Western Europe, serfdom, had laid somewhat of a foundation for chattel slavery, and here we see within a generation Afrikan indentured servitude was morphing into slavery, and then into chattel slavery. Virginia would become the first British colony to legally establish slavery in 1661. Maryland and the Carolinas were soon to follow. (Georgia was the only colony to resist the onset of Afrikan enslavement, it being created as an Enlightened experiment, however, 17 years after its formation, it repealed the ban on Afrikan enslavement. In 1670, five years after Anthony Johnson death a Virginia jury decided the land Johnson left could be seized by the government because he was a "negroe and by consequence an alien." Soon other southern colonies passed laws that condemned all children of enslaved Afrikans to perpetual enslavement. Within three generations we witness the changing position of Afrikans in colonial American society. History books tell us that the change in status of Afrikan people from servant to chattel slave was gradual--I do not believe that 40 years or two generations qualify as gradual. Once ex-indentured servants found the increasing limit of land availability as large planters grab more and more of it, they formed a class of angry, impoverished pioneer farmers. Bacon's Rebellion in 1676, which saw these pioneer farmers and Afrikan indentured servants and enslaved Afrikans joined forces, had a decided effect on American slavery. It did not start the trend towards racial slavery but accelerated it. The racial unity of the rebellion frightened the ruling class, and many historians believe as a result of this fear the planter élite began hardening the associated of Afrikans with enslavement. This stress on racial slavery served to create a white identity over and against non-whites that would unify people of European descent across class and other lines that normally divided them. Thus, a critical and rapid transition occurred in the late 1600s in the colonies' imported labor supply—from European indentured servants to enslaved Afrikans. In 1672, England officially got into the slave trade as the King of England chartered the Royal African Company, encouraging it to expand the British slave trade. In 1698, the English Parliament ruled that any British subject could trade in slaves. As British colonists became convinced that Afrikans best served their demand for labor, importation increased and by the turn of the eighteenth century Afrikan slaves numbered in the tens of thousands in the British colonies. In 1705 Virginia declared that "All servants imported and brought in this County... who were not Christians in their Native Country... shall be slaves. A Negro, mulatto and Indian slaves ... shall be held to be real estate." English suppliers responded to the increasing demand for slaves. By 1710, writes historian Jon Butler, "captured Africans outstripped indentured servants by a ratio of at least 6-1 and established a pattern of colonial labor consumption not broken until the American Revolution." From 1700 to 1775, slaveship brought more Afrikans to the colonies than all European immigrants combined. Throughout the entire colonial period, 250,000 Afrikans arrived in America, which by 1780 had a black population of 576,000. Over the first 50 years of the 18th century, the number of Afrikans brought to British colonies on British ships rose from 5,000 to 45,000 a year. England had passed Portugal and Spain as the number one trafficker of enslaved Afrikans in the world. My point in all this is that when Afrikans first arrived it was not so much that they were servants equal in status to "white' indentured servants as much as they were outsiders and society did not know how to deal with them. Despite them being listed as servants, their true status was "other" given the following facts: They were racially and culturally different, were non-Christians, some even Muslims (the then enemies of Christendom), and that they had no home government or even a family to speak on their behalf, made them something altogether differ from European indentured servants. And once these circumstances synergized with the European worldview--its materialism, indolence, money lust and xenophobia--it would only be a matter of time, a short time, before Afrikans would become chattel slaves. It was just a question of Europeans formulating a new policy to deal with these outsiders, these cultural aliens. More than anything else, Afrikans upon arrival were in a nebulous, unclear category but given the historical dynamics and timing, Europeans had predetermined the destiny of Afrikans before they actualized it.

Regular readers of my blog know that I never let up on Western civilization. It was already the problem before they devised white supremacy. I have railed against it anti-nature worldview that in turn has created an approach to science that conceals that same view. I have said that a scientific approach must include imagination but more importantly intuition. Sometimes you can just feel something is not right. Much of the West's scientific experimentation is producing effect that were unforeseen. A little intuition might have might have alter the course of an experiment; a little bit of wisdom, would have prevented it altogether. The ancestors would have told you in a dream that this was not the right way to go.

I say all this as a preview to the clip I have below. Watch it and realize that we must save ourselves. Continuing to follow the West is absolute ridiculousness.

Let's be empathetic for a nanosecond—let's give the West a break, I mean, hey, they didn't know what would be the consequences of their endeavors. They thought slaughtering some “savages” and taking their ancestral lands, would simply enrich them in the dog-eat-dog world they had conceptualized. They thought creating various industrial pollutants would have scant effect on the global environment. How could raping the planet, and wantonly murdering its people lead to ecological disaster or threaten species annihilation? Either they couldn't connect the dots or didn't care. They lacked both foresight and foreknowledge. But if they had a worldview that saw Nature as alive, and realized that they had a symbiotic relationship will it/her, then maybe they would have consulted with her. Afrikans and other peoples did through ancestral veneration and divination systems, both of which offer foresight and foreknowledge. (That some real science.) Since it is apparent that the present trajectory of Western civilization is forbidding, shouldn't its leadership be changing course in order to rectify the situation? Shouldn't they be trying to produce a balance existence on the planet rather than continue to try and fight Nature? Oh, I forgot about space exploration: They will simply sacrifice this planet and carry their worldview, sciences, and behaviors into the “final frontier.” (And you can believe that they will be the aggressor if they do encounter other life forces.) The recent history of the earth rather than be reconcile, will be replicate on other planets.